The framing story of Crissy Van Meter’s debut novel, CREATURES, centers on the upcoming wedding of Evangeline (Evie) to her beloved Liam. It is set to take place on Winter Island, where Evie has lived almost her entire life. Fictional Winter Island is, in Van Meter’s narrative, a short ferry ride from Los Angeles, and serves as a summer playground for the rich, a former research hub for studying marine life, and (in Evie’s experience) a place to feel both trapped and free, sometimes simultaneously.

As the wedding approaches, Winter Island has just been pummeled by another frequent storm, leaving Evie nervous about Liam’s safety (he’s off on a charter fishing boat where he works) and simultaneously annoyed, fascinated and heartbroken by the body of a huge whale that has beached in the harbor and is stinking up the entire town.

"Throughout, Van Meter’s beautifully written descriptions of Winter Island help ground Evie’s story in a specific place and will inspire thoughtful considerations of the intersections of setting and character."

This isn’t the only unwelcome arrival in Evie’s life. Her mom shows up on her doorstep, as she’s inclined to do. She has been an inconsistent presence at best in Evie’s life, frequently abandoning Evie and Evie's father to follow her latest passion. As a result, Evie was largely raised by her late father, often in poverty (except when his pot-growing business was booming). Her father, unlike her mother, might have been present in body but was often distracted, neglectful or careless with Evie’s affection.

Evie’s childhood and young adulthood constitute the focus of many of the chapters in CREATURES. Her wedding forms the unifying structure, but the intervening chapters go back in time to some of her earliest childhood memories of life on Winter Island and forward in time to moments of crisis in her and Liam’s marriage, several years in. These flash-forward chapters are some of the most emotionally affecting, as Evie is compelled to wrestle with the question of whether or not being raised where she was, by the kind of parents she had, has made it impossible for her to truly open herself up to another person.

How do we continue to love a person --- or a place --- who has betrayed us? This is the question that repeatedly comes back to confront Evie, directly and indirectly. Narrative chapters, many of which are fully formed as short stories, explore this question from many angles. These are interspersed with shorter, more lyrical reflections, which take the form of nature studies (the adult Evie studies marine mammals) but offer broader reflections on the natural and human worlds. Throughout, Van Meter’s beautifully written descriptions of Winter Island help ground Evie’s story in a specific place and will inspire thoughtful considerations of the intersections of setting and character.